


The day Hermione Granger cheated in a test

by PiperHG



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Missing Scene, POV Hermione Granger, Quidditch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 00:05:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5561074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiperHG/pseuds/PiperHG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the day of the tryouts for the Gryffindor Quidditch team and Hermione wouldn't ever help Ron with magic. Like, ever. </p><p>Little missing moment from Book 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The day Hermione Granger cheated in a test

**Author's Note:**

> Just a dash of cuteness by a still secretly in love Hermione.  
> Translation from an old Italian fanfiction of mine.
> 
> Thanks to [fleetingcrows](http://fleetingcrows.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr for the patience and the wonderful beta work.

Morning. Great Hall.

I breathe deeply, exasperated. Ron has been talking at me for half an hour already and I’m seriously considering casting a Silencing Charm on him. Right when a pause gives me hope that Harry’s reassurances have ended our friend’s agony, he starts again.

“Listen, Harry. Are you… really sure… That I can do this, aren’t you? Well, it _can_ be that there is someone better among the new contestants… Oh, what I’m saying… There is surely someone better… You are not gonna favor me… Are you?”

There are times in life when you have to take the decision to step in: and this is one of those times. _Definitely._ So I unwillingly drop my Charms notes and interrupt the conversation, looking Ron straight in his eyes (and trying to not focus on how gorgeous his blue eyes are): “Please, stop. You’ve already asked the same thing to Harry twelve times. Without letting him answer once. Your good sense should make you keep this Ron/Ron dialogue for yourself. Providing that you want me to write a good essay. The Vitious’ essay. The essay you’re probably going to beg for tonight after the auditions”.

Done. Ron has been silenced without using a wand. If I have to be completely honest, I hear him muttering the words “quaffle” and “hoops”, but not even Hermione the Queen of Blackmail is perfect, and actually performing a charm wouldn’t be very prefect-like. At least _one_ of the Prefects has to be a good example for the younger students and he surely can’t be the one who is embarrassingly stammering like this, especially for something _stupid_ like Quidditch.

We all manage somehow to survive the breakfast and we make our way towards the field. Ron immediately leaves and enters the locker room, with an alarming greenish complexion on his face, while Harry lingers out with me for a little more.

I take a few seconds to scan his face. He is not exactly green like Ron, but he’s a bit too pale. “So, do you think he’s going to make it?”

He hesitates. “Well, if he doesn’t panic… And if no one else does an amazing tryout… I mean, he _can_ be great, when he is focused…”

“Harry!” I snap back. “Six years of friendship and you _still_ think you can avoid my questions? Again: is he going to make it or not?”

“… Yes. I think he is going to.” He doesn’t really look like someone convinced of what he’s saying. Actually, I believe he could persuade me better if he had told me I have a Crumple-Horned Snorlack on my shoulder. I could also swear I have heard him muttering something along the lines of “I hope so”, while, after having suddenly said bye, he leaves to catch up with Ginny, who is entering the locker room herself. She is taking the audition herself, as a Chaser, and she is much more likely to get the spot than her brother is. For a few seconds I get lost in my thoughts about how cute those two are together – I’m pretty sure Harry is starting to feel something more than affection for Ginny, and after all those years of her chasing him, it is _so fun_ to watch – but I soon have to shake my thoughts off, because the contestants are entering the field and I better go and get a seat in the stands.

Harry looks annoyed, while he has to scrutinize dozens of kids from the earlier years in the Chasers’ and Beaters’ auditions, but he can’t possibly be more annoyed and pained that I am, looking at Ron progressively sickening with no idea about what to do to make him feel better. Well, I do have some ideas about things that would make him feel better, but I don’t think that I would ever be brave enough to do them. Not in the middle of a Quidditch field, anyway.

Before I realize it, the big moment has come. Ron jumps on his broomstick – and this is a miracle itself, given his shaking hands – and the Chasers align themselves in front of him. _Please, Ginny, be lenient. Please._ Of course she isn’t. At all. It would have been like asking Piton to not take points away from Gryffindor: absolutely against her own nat… – he’s blocked it! With his fingertips, almost magically ( _almost_ , since I would be the only one around capable of cast a charm to help, and I wouldn’t _ever_ do it). But he did it, and he blocks the other four shots as well. Five out of five. I can’t believe my eyes. I know that Ron can be extraordinary (I mean, he’s _Ron_ ) but I didn’t think this was going to be the case. Indeed it was, and no one else of the previous players has done better than him. The only one who still has to try it out is Cormac McLaggen. Quite handsome, arrogant and definitely an idiot. But what matters now is that he’s really damn good at Quidditch. One. Two. Three. My hands grips on my wand tightly, hesitating because of the tiny annoying little voice of my conscience. _You can’t do this, Hermione._ I have to. He’s Ron. _You are a Prefect, for God’s sake_. That’s not the point… Four blocks. It’s now or never. Before that tiny voice can talk again, I lightly move my wand and I cast a Confundus charm on McLaggen. He suddenly loses his balance on his broomstick, he almost falls and the fifth Quaffle, shot by a triumphant Ginny Weasley, gets lost.

 

Evening. Gryffindor common room.

“Hermione?” Ron’s voice is already pleading.

“What, Ron?” I know what he wants, of course, but asking him and watching him struggle, worried about my possible reaction, his cheeks flushing a little under his cute freckles, it’s more satisfactory than I could ever admit.

“You know, I was _extraordinary_ today. Harry told me. Right, Harry?”

I look at Harry, who is casting glances at another Weasley, speaking and laughing with Dean Thomas on the other side of the room. He doesn’t answer but he limits himself to a vague gesture with his hand, that I can possibly read only as “Yes, whatever”.

I fake a detached tone. “Yes, Ron. I’m pretty sure I have heard you say that once or twice during dinner. So what?”

“Maybe you could let me take a glimpse at your essay? I swear it’s the last time. Just a glimpse, you know, to get… inspired”.

I let out a theatrical scowl before handing him the scroll.

I was about to give him a lecture about not neglecting the study because of Quidditch, but that would’ve made feel a bit too guilty. I still can’t believe myself. I cast a charm on a student! I cheated in a Quidditch audition! If the news spread, I could get expelled! And it could also destroy Ron’s pride, that’s even worse. The good thing is, Ron doesn’t suspect anything. Bad thing, Harry does. We didn’t talk about it, but I saw how he was looking at me while McLaggen entered the Great Hall for dinner, almost falling twice.

I smile a little. Maybe I could do some research about a memory charm…


End file.
